"When I told my friends we're shutting down, they think the Trinity project is in trouble," says Raines. "We're just going through the transition between finishing up the Continental Bridge and Commerce-Beckley and the lakes. I am still extremely optimistic about the project. I don't think there's anything to create a story that sounds negative toward the Trinity." He laughs. "Then again, I am the most optimistic person in Dallas."

Maybe the second-most behind Mary Suhm, who now says the Continental Bridge will open as as a pedestrian bridge on April 14, 2014. Of course, one should write down that date in pencil: The bridge was supposed to close to cars days after the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in March 2012, and the Dallas City Council was once told the ribbon-cutting would take place in August 2013.

Suhm says the final design specs will come in this month, and shortly after that the city will advertise for bids, which will be due in April. Suhm says she hopes to get those bids to the city council for a vote by May, and then award construction contracts in June in the hopes of reaching that April 2014, opening date.

The city manager has said in the past that delays were due to the design of the pedestrian park and the “transition” space between Riverfront Boulevard and the bridge. She now says the age of the bridge also had something to do with the delay.

"While they were looking at it and the park design on top of the bridge, there was a decision made that we needed some bridge repair before we began construction," she says. "It's an 83-year-old bridge."

And, as Raines says: "This is the first time the city has converted a vehicular bridge to pedestrian, and there are questions when repurposing an existing utility: Is it a park? Is it public works? A variety of different departments have had a say in that."

Suhm and Raines also insist the Trinity lakes remain on schedule: As Rudy reported last summer, the Corps is performing an environmental impact study, the results of which are due sometime next year. "But nothing has come up as a red flag," says Raines, who was brought to WRT by Ignacio Bunster-Ossa, co-author of the Trinity River Corridor Design Guidelines.

Says Suhm, WRT's shuttering of its Dallas office is nothing more than "a business decision. We wish they could have stayed, but we'll still have a relationship with them."